Welcome to the Wright Home!

A few fun updates. Today we went to the Urbans and joined with another hs family for a Christmas party. We had 14 children from ages 10 years to 15 months. We got to decorate cookies, made ornaments from hand prints, acted out the Christmas story (during which my video camera battery died!,) had a great snack, and some good old running around outside time. The kids all behaved very well, only 2 ornaments were broken and no one was hurt. I must say the little ones did much better on this than on the turkey project!
While we were there, 2 of the girls were playing piano. Almost as soon as we got home, Catherine started asking me to give her a lesson. I took for 8 years, play rarely, and about pulled my hair out when Samuel took last year. However, Catherine has always enjoyed singing and music and she seemed ready. So, we sat down with S's old books and had a little lesson. She was so pleased with herself and did really well. I told her that Samuel used to play each song 5 times. "Can I do that?" Of course! Granted, it's the first day, but she's so excited! She has a little notebook and was writing down the notes and what they were worth. this may be a little easier than I anticipated!
Samuel has had some challenges with multiplication tables, but does ok counting by 5's, 3's, etc. Charissa lent us a book that is so awesome! I don't have it in front of me, but it's stories in pictures with the factors and products. One time through the book and he could tell me all but one of the answers. I need to get the lower numbers at some point, because this is amazing! I'm looking forward to much easier times at the kitchen table.
On another note, S has never wanted to be called anything but Samuel and gets kind of irritated if you do (although he has no problem calling other people things besides their chosen name.) However, the other day he told Caleb he could call S "Bubba."
Caleb has begun giving us kisses and making the sound to go with it. It's so sweet, except he didn't want to kiss his daddy! It may have something to do with the stubble issue.
A friend had eye surgery and is supposed to take it easy, so we brought dinner to her tonight. Catherine wanted to eat with her and she said it was fine. Her parents had left this morning and she was a little lonely. Ha! We are the cure for that! Caleb has no inhibitions and was quite pleased to check out the cat food, garage can, and pull anything he could off the coffe table. It was a nice visit and she was very sweet about it, but I'm sure it's a little wearing when you're not used to such an active little explorer. She did say we warmed her tummy and her heart, which I'm thankful for.
Cranberry jelly does NOT make everything better. The bread I made was awful! Caleb kept eating it and grabbing every piece I missed, though. I'm not ready to give up yet, although I did buy a loaf at WalMart today! Mary, who would knock Martha Stewart's socks off, sent a nice recipe that I'm excited to try. Here's a little warning, though. If you're going to make this with your kids, be aware there are some words we don't use in this house included in the direction. I'll let you know the results! http://steamykitchen.com/blog/2007/09/10/no-knead-bread-revisited/